Exploring Dubrovnik and Lokrum Island

The sky was blue when we woke up this morning which was not what we were expecting after reading the weather forecast last night! It was a very pleasant surprise!! The view from our apartment is amazing - I find myself being drawn to it constantly. The house we are staying in was built in the 1800's and the host's mother was born here in 1926.  It's really lovely and I'd easily come back here again. As Claudia wrote yesterday though, my advice to anyone would be to get a cab to the apartment when lugging suitcases! 

Check out this view!

After ducking to the very small supermarket to buy fruit and milk we descended the 200+ stairs to reach the entrance to the old town. On a friend's recommendation we decided to catch the ferry to Lokrum Island (after a coffee of course!). Here is our view from the cafe. 

We took a few photos of the old town as we headed down to the harbour. It's steeped in history and charm. 

Cathedral built by Richard the Lionheart

This guy rebelled against the Republic and was expelled to live and eventually die in Venice. His nose is shiny as it's considered to be good luck if you rub his nose and make a wish. He was a poet and students in Croatia study his works. 

We were just in time to get the ferry over to the island. The first written records of the island are dated from 1029 when a Benedictine monastery was established. The island is a national park and is quite tropical. The medieval ruins which are surrounded by beautiful moss and trees make for stunning scenery. We were quite taken with the place. We can't believe how many beautiful places we've been fortunate enough to visit during this holiday. 

Monastery 

Chair from Game of Thrones

View on our way back to Dubrovnik 

We then found a nice cafe for lunch and a nice gelateri for dessert (!) and wandered around the fascinating alleyways and streets of the old city. We hadn't realised that there were so many levels to the place and found ourselves walking up many stairs and discovering lots of quaint houses with amazing views. We could have walked around the city walls but it was outrageously expensive as is everything here, so decided against doing that. In the little places we stopped at during our cruise we paid roughly 20 Kunas for a coffee and a tea. In Dubrovnik we pay 20 Kunas for one coffee! This is equivalent to about $5 or $6 Australian dollars! 

Anyway we feel that the view we get from our apartment is amazing enough without having to pay 100 Kunas!! 

This is a statue in front of a cafe called Cafe Pi Pi - unfortunately it was closed for the winter! 

Tomorrow we're going on a pre-booked tour to Montenegro. We're getting picked up at 7.40am and it lasts for 12 hours!! That'll be a shock to the system! Let's hope the weather stays fine.